


something particularly wonderful

by Izzi456



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: A College AU, F/F, Sanvers Secret Valentine 2019, Valentine's Day, and a target au?, and technically an #alexfromtarget au but ignore that, there's also 2 forrest gump quotes in there for some reason idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 07:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17783042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzi456/pseuds/Izzi456
Summary: For the past three weeks, Target had been filled to the brim with Valentine’s Day decorations. Every aisle had a bright and bedazzled cherry-red sign with a heart or cupid on it and every team member and team leader was allowed to wear accessories given that they were rightfully related to the holiday.And Alex loved it.





	something particularly wonderful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unrulyposie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrulyposie/gifts).



> hi @sanversearp / mickeyalfabi :) happy valentine's day!!
> 
> i hope you like this little fic, i had fun writing it

Alex got off her lunch break and went back to the register. She still had a test on Monday to study for, aching feet, and a crick in her neck that just wouldn’t go away, but today was Valentine’s Day, so she just straightened her red sparkly headband adorned with plastic hearts attached to pipe cleaners and signed in to the computer.

For the past three weeks, Target had been filled to the brim with Valentine’s Day decorations. Every aisle had a bright and bedazzled cherry-red sign with a heart or cupid on it and every team member and team leader was allowed to wear accessories given that they were rightfully related to the holiday.

And Alex loved it.

She had no one special to celebrate with this year—like every other year—but that didn’t matter. 

Kara had a date this afternoon and a Valentine’s Day dance tonight at her high school, so Alex couldn’t hang out with her. But her mother still sent her a card with a stereotypical cheesy poem on it, and she got to see customers buying flowers and chocolates for their loved ones which was good enough for her.

It occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t like the holiday as much as she did as she’d never really had a reason to celebrate it. 

But it was one of her favorite holidays. She could buy as much chocolate as she wanted without anyone judging her, she could pretend to hate rom-coms but give in a little too easy when Kara suggested them for the umpteenth time. She could enjoy people celebrating love, which, what was wrong with that? Nothing, in Alex’s book.

Especially when she’d figured out not too long ago that maybe she’d been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong people, for love.

She had redefined love and, consequently, felt more herself than she had in years.

Alex flipped on the switch for Aisle 3 and, immediately, as always, someone rerouted their shopping cart and headed straight towards her.

Customers were like a box of chocolates—she never knew what she was gonna get.

Thankfully, people had better attitudes than usual, so Alex was able to keep her good mood going.

The few hours she had left in her shift went quickly. She yelled at Lucy a few registers over at 3:50 that she had ten minutes left. She started bouncing on her feet to make the feeling come back to them when she had a momentary lapse of customers but stopped when one headed her way.

The girl, who Alex guessed was around her age, came to her register with a very full cart.

And Alex couldn’t help but notice that she was cute. And pretty. But she didn’t seem too happy, more annoyed like she was exhausted from, Alex guessed, running all over the three-floor store finding everything she needed.

She was buying most of their holiday section and more than one bag of candy along with an assortment of other random stuff, which made Alex happy. She was probably having a Valentine’s Day party, or a very elaborate date.

Her long brown hair _almost_ covered the National City University sweatshirt she was wearing and the small rainbow pin on her chest that made Alex perk up as she hoped it meant what she thought it meant.

The girl didn’t seem to notice her until Alex said, “Hey, go Red Devils!”

Her gaze was stuck on Alex for a second before she said, “Huh?” She looked down as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing. “Oh. Yeah.”

Alex almost facepalmed herself. She was face-to-face with a pretty and potentially-not-straight girl, it was Valentine’s Day, and _that_ was her opening line?

Alex busied herself with reaching for the girl’s items and scanning them as quickly as possible. Anything to make her not have enough time to say something else stupid.

The girl tilted her head. “You go to NCU?”

Alex nodded. 

She didn’t notice the girl was waiting for her to add more until the girl prodded. “What year?”

_Saying something is better than saying nothing,_ Alex reminded herself.

“Oh, um, I have one more year. What about you?” Alex picked up a heart-shaped piñata and had to turn it over multiple times to find the damn bar code. Because it was hard to find, not because she was distracted.

“Same. So, you’re a junior?”

Alex shook her head. “Not really. I’m sort of a senior. With an extended senior year. It’s taking me five years to finish my degree.”

The girl was looking at her, intrigued. Not the look Alex was used to getting from, say, her mother who, when she heard that Alex was going to take an extra year, was worried she wouldn’t get into the best med schools.

Alex continued, “I’m pre-med and bioengineering. Which is…a lot of classes.” That was an understatement.

At that, the girl whistled, and Alex felt her neck get hot. “Damn, that’s impressive.” Alex shrugged, ringing up more of her items, not sure what to say. “Makes my lone criminology degree seem a bit unexciting,” the girl said with a laugh.

“What? No. Criminology sounds awesome. Do you want to be a lawyer?”

Alex was grateful that she was managing to act like a normal human being around this girl.

“Cop. No, actually, detective. And captain, someday.”

Alex paused. “Wow. You’ve got your life all planned.” Alex bit her cheek and focused on grabbing the girl’s items from the conveyer belt. She wished she knew what she was doing with her life, it would make everything so much easier.

“I guess. Who knows if it’ll pan out though. The future is full of surprises,” she said as if she could see Alex’s disappointment in herself. “I know I’m like a complete stranger, but I have a feeling you’ll be fine…” the girl leaned a bit to the side. “Alex,” she read off the name tag.

Alex smiled, for some reason believing her. The girl smiled back, and, as cliché as it was, Alex could’ve sworn she felt butterflies in her stomach. Especially when she found out that the girl had dimples.

“Thanks, um…”

“Maggie,” the girl said.

Alex repeated it. “Maggie.” It suited her.

It was quiet for a moment until Alex realized she’d probably been staring at her like a creep for too long and busied herself with grabbing Maggie’s streamers and chocolate to ring up.

“I’m also a biology minor. Just in case, y’know? Did you have Professor Ferguson?”

“Oh, my god, yes. That guy was a _nightmare_ ,” Alex said.

“Right? He took off so many points for having the wrong damn verb tense on the lab reports that I was about to start using future perfect subjunctive just to piss him off.”

Alex laughed. “If you think that was bad, try being his TA.”

Maggie looked at her like she was crazy. “You were his TA, too? How did you survive?”

“I almost didn’t. But it looks good on the resume, so…”

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed. “Did you have his Monday-Thursday classes?”

Alex shook her head. “Tuesday-Friday.”

“Oh. We probably just missed each other, then. Too bad.” Maggie pursed her lips to the side.

Alex smiled. “Yeah, too bad.”

She could’ve been Maggie’s TA and met her earlier. She wondered if it would’ve gone as well as Alex thought this was going.

“So, you were the devil’s assistant, you’re studying to be a double-doctor, probably, _and_ you’re working here.” Maggie gestured to the store around them. “Which also looks like hell.”

“It’s not _that_ horrible.”

Maggie tilted her head like she didn’t believe that, not for one second.

Alex sighed and made a big show of looking over her shoulder and then leaned a bit forward. “Okay fine, it is. But don’t tell my boss I said that. And it’s surprisingly okay this time of year.”

“Really? I would think it’d be worse. They make you wear those absurd head boppers—” she pointed at Alex’s head “—and all this pink and red crap is in every nook and cranny of this place.”

Alex self-consciously felt her headband and then dropped Maggie’s red solo cups into a bag. She was about to tell her differently, but Maggie seemed to be on a roll.

“You know, it’s a ridiculous notion that you need a manufactured holiday to prove that you care. It just shows that people are patsies willing to throw away money on cheap chocolate and wilted roses. Kinda makes me want to puke.”

Alex raised her eyebrows when she noticed that although Maggie was saying this all nonchalantly, underneath it was anger.

“Sorry,” Maggie said, running a hand through her hair. “I just hate Valentine’s Day. It’s a dumb holiday, isn’t it?”

“Uh…but you…you’re buying all this stuff,” Alex pointed out.

Maggie waved that off. “That’s for my party. Oh,” Maggie lit up. She reached into her pocket pulled out a piece of paper that she handed to Alex. “Do you wanna come? Are you working tonight? My apartment’s like a five-minute walk from campus.”

Alex took the flyer from her slowly, reading it. It was all black with a white font and said: _ANTI-VALENTINE’S BASH—SINGLES ONLY—FEB 14—STARTS 10PM_ with her address.

Alex was frozen, not sure what to do. Or say. 

It was then that she noticed that half the items Maggie was buying were giant plastic X’s, circle-backslashes, and the letters A-N-T-I as if she was going to fix every Valentine’s banner she’d bought for her party.

Alex was on autopilot, her hand automatically going for the last few items on the conveyer belt. She finally looked away from the flyer when she felt the alcohol.

Maggie seemed expectant but also concerned as if she saw Alex’s mood shift. “So?”

Alex was silent until, “I’m going to need to see your ID,” came out of her mouth.

“Oh. Okay.”

Maggie dug into her other pocket and got her ID out. Alex looked it over, trying to buy time before she had to actually answer Maggie.

Of course she didn’t want to go to Maggie’s party—she loved Valentine’s Day. But Maggie was funny and pretty and cool. And she seemed like a nice person aside from this one thing that, apparently, she hated.

Alex remembered to actually look at her date of birth; Maggie was barely twenty-one and her birthday was about ten months after Alex’s. Alex handed it back to Maggie and rung up the vodka and packs of beer. The flyer was on the counter next to her.

Alex subtly leaned over and flicked off the light for her register, ensuring that no one else would come by. It was close enough to the end of her shift anyway.

“Why, um…why do you hate Valentine’s Day?”

Alex had thought that was a fair question but judging from how Maggie stiffened up and started to help Alex bag things, maybe it was a pretty loaded one.

“Just…haven’t had good experiences with the day. Ever,” Maggie said with a light laugh that didn’t seem genuine at all.

“Me neither. But I don’t hate it.”

“You mean ‘me neither’ as in you’ve had _bad_ experiences, or that nothing amazing has happened?”

“What’s…what’s the difference?”

Maggie gave her a pointed look. “There’s a difference.”

“Okay, well, I guess nothing particularly _wonderful_ has happened to me. I haven’t really ever celebrated it with anyone.” _Aside from Kara_ , Alex added to herself, _but saying that you usually spend Valentine’s with your little sister sounds lame_. “So, I know I shouldn’t like it. But,” Alex continued hastily when it seemed like Maggie would interject, “I still do. It’s a nice holiday.”

“I’m guessing the accessories are optional?” Maggie asked with a quick glance up at Alex’s head. Alex didn’t even have to answer before Maggie nodded. Then, she asked, “You haven’t ever been rejected on Valentine’s Day, have you?”

Alex carefully packed the alcohol into the bag. “No.”

“Or gotten your heart broken? Or been grounded? Or have one day change everything but not in the way you hoped it would?”

Alex stopped what she was doing. Maggie’s eyes were fixed on the floor now, her hair had fallen forward to cover most of her face, and Alex could’ve sworn she was clenching her jaw. 

Except for being grounded, none of that kind of stuff had happened to Alex ever, on any day. She’d never liked anyone enough to get her heart broken, never been rejected as she’d never had the guts to even ask someone out in the first place. As for Maggie’s fourth point, she couldn’t even imagine…

That was a lot of horrible February fourteenths. No wonder Maggie felt the way she did. 

“Maggie—”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t even know you. I don’t know why I just…Can you—you’re done, right? What’s my total?”

Maggie was clenching her credit card in her hand, and Alex wanted to make this better. She wanted to make the frown disappear and see her smile again, but she didn’t know how.

Alex told her the total cost, and Maggie signed the pad. 

“Pretend you didn’t hear that. Sorry for ruining your day with all my crap,” Maggie said, loading her bags.

“What? No, you didn’t. You didn’t ruin it,” Alex insisted. “Maggie, I—”

“You don’t need to…I—I shouldn’t have said anything.” A small forced smile appeared again. “Have a nice day, Alex.”

Maggie was going to leave, and Alex was stuck behind this counter with nothing to say. But she knew that she couldn’t let Maggie—this girl she’d just met who was a lot more than she seemed and intrigued Alex more than anyone—go like this.

“Wait, Maggie,” Alex said a little loudly so Maggie would stop.

She’d started to turn away with her cart, but luckily looked back at Alex. There was something about her; Alex knew she couldn’t let her get away that easily.

Alex took a deep breath and spit it out before she lost her nerve. “Have, um…have you ever been asked out on Valentine’s Day?”

Maggie furrowed her brow. “No.”

Alex rubbed at her arm. “But if…if someone _were_ to ask you out, you wouldn’t be opposed to it?”

Alex waited, hoping Maggie would get what she was trying to do.

And it seemed like Maggie did. She leaned on the handle and was scrutinizing Alex now. “It depends on the person,” she said after a beat. “If they were just doing it to try and change my mind or out of pity, then—”

“No, not trying to change anything. And not doing it out of pity. Just…asking as someone who maybe wants to know more about the future captain of the NCPD who happens to hate a holiday that, admittedly, largely contributes to justifying capitalism’s excessive marketing of the heteronormative lifestyle and furthers the notion that expensive material objects are necessary to prove your love that patsies buy into. But it’s also a fun day if you have someone to share it with.”

Alex’s heart skipped a beat when a smile slowly bloomed on Maggie’s face again, her eyes sparkling. 

“I’m…kind of busy today.”

“Right. The party. I could come and we could…figure out somewhere to go this weekend? Or something?”

Maggie just looked at her for a second, and Alex tried not to act too nervous.

Finally, Maggie said, “Alright.” And Alex let out a breath. “But I’m just warning you, I will definitely be shitfaced by 11 tonight, so don’t judge me on anything I do after then.”

“Understandable.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you later then, Alex,” she said. She seemed marginally happier, which Alex counted as a win.

“Yeah, see you, Maggie.”

And just as Alex neatly folded the flyer and stuck it in her back pocket, she heard her name again.

Alex swiveled around. “Hm?”

Maggie pointed at the space above Alex. “The head bopper. It’s cute,” she said with a smile.

Alex felt herself flush, but before she could say anything, Maggie had already turned away again to head out. Alex’s eyes followed her until she disappeared.

And Alex didn’t know if the two of them meeting today was destiny or if it was because everyone in the world was just floating around accidental-like on a breeze and the two of them had happened to cross each other’s paths, but she liked to think that it was a little bit of both.


End file.
